2023-09-22 13:45:00
The Livres de Libédossier notebook The novelist has identified with winged creatures since her youth and evokes the “hands of the sea” which tore off the shell of the baby bird that she was.
It is from a bird’s eye view that, in this autobiographical book, Amélie Nothomb goes through her life. She has already recounted her childhood spent in different countries, in Japan, China, New York, then in Bangladesh where at 12 she was raped. The writer is gifted, even gifted, graceful and funny, and her story is enriched from book to book, like her talent. Serious and light, it freezes images that last one second. She draws parents who are ambivalent in spite of themselves, a maternal grandmother who is constant and conscious in her exercise of nastiness, and complexes that we describe as childish even though they stick with us for life.
Can we write without metaphor?
Because it allows us to take a vital step aside in the face of disasters, because it is elegant, because it welcomes humor with open arms, metaphor is the figure of speech that envelops Psychopompe. Very young, Amélie Nothomb identified with the bird. She acquires “side vision” and sees “the world from the sides”, that is, she sees danger while others snooze and once evil has happened, she sees it all looking elsewhere. There are not only sad things in this book. So when she made her father’s breakfast, she was “the vestal of the cafe.” Nothomb describes this coffee ceremony which earned him the gratitude of his father: “I recognize your coffee, only you can make one this strong.” Amélie Nothomb doesn’t talk about the rape. She evokes “the hands of the sea” which tore off the shell of the baby bird that she was. Nothomb insists that sometimes it’s good to name things clearly. The “poor little thing” uttered by her mother after the tragedy was a little short.
A love without a balance of power, is it possible?
The quality of the bond between a father and his daughter may be excellent, but there is always some frying on the line. The death of the father changes the situation. Psychopomp, the writer had a “dream exchange” with her late father, the hero of First Blood (Albin Michel, Renaudot Prize 2021): “I had loved my father politely, lying to him every time he needed: often. From now on, loving him politely no longer implied any lies, which also did not entail any confession on my part, as I felt this father, formerly distant, in absolute proximity. However, Amélie Nothomb is not blissful in the face of the dead: “If a hated dead person tries to communicate with you, hang up. We have the right to refuse.”
What is writing?
“When Rilke says that writing should be a matter of life and death, I don’t see any metaphor there.” Psychopompe is a book about writing, its importance, its demands. Writing is flying: “I am not suggesting that reading myself be an exercise in altitude.” Writing allows you not to sink. Keeping the rhythm, not taking “anything that weighs” with you in flight, “burdening yourself with a minimum of material”, these are some of the writer’s advice, with this one: “No bird poses as a victim.” Better to express joy.
Amélie Nothomb, Psychopompe, Albin Michel, 160 pp., €18.90 (ebook: €13).
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